Protective Effects of Ginsenosides (20R)‐Rg3 on H2O2‐Induced Myocardial Cell Injury by Activating Keap‐1/Nrf2/HO‐1 Signaling Pathway

Abstract Ginsenosides (20S)‐Rg3 and (20R)‐Rg3 are famous rare ginsenosides from red ginseng, and their configurations in C‐20 are different. This study aimed to investigate the protective mechanism of ginsenosides (20S)‐Rg3 and (20R)‐Rg3 on H2O2‐induced H9C2 cells and compare their activity. The results showed that the ginsenosides (20S)‐Rg3 and (20R)‐Rg3 could increase the cell activity and the levels of GSH‐Px, SOD and CAT, and decrease activities of LDH, MDA and ROS. Further studies showed that ginsenosides (20S)‐Rg3 and (20R)‐Rg3 could prevent oxidative stress injury of H9C2 cells by H2O2 through the Keap‐1/Nrf2/HO‐1 pathway. But the ML385 counteracts these effects. Interestingly, among these results, ginsenoside (20R)‐Rg3 was superior to (20S)‐Rg3, indicating that ginsenoside (20R)‐Rg3 have a stronger effect of antioxidative stress. This study reflected that ginsenoside (20R)‐Rg3 could be used as a potential Nrf2 activator and a safe effective Chinese herbal monomer in the treatment of cardiovascular disease.